ng new facts. The severest requirements of the Baconian method
of induction--requirements which have been notoriously disregarded
by men of science in the investigation of Nature--remain in force as
regards the students of history. The powers of analysis, generalization,
statement, and narrative in Macaulay's historical essays were fully
equal to any powers he displayed in the "History of England from the
Reign of James II." No candid critic can deny that there is little in
his "History" which, as far as regards essential facts and principles,
had not been previously stated in a more sententious form in his Essays.
But we recollect the time when the same dignified scholars who are now
insensible to his defects were blind to his merits, and with majestic
dulness classed him among the inglorious company of superficial,
untrustworthy, brilliant declaimers. The moment, however, he published
in octavo volumes a solid history, and appended to the bottom of each
page the obscure authorities on which his narrative was founded, and
which plainly exhibited the capacity of the brilliant declaimer
to perform all the austerest duties of the drudge, his reputation
marvellously increased among the most frigid and most exacting
dispensers of praise. To come nearer home, we remember the time when
Bancroft's rhetoric entirely shut out from the eyes of antiquaries and
men of taste Bancroft's industry and scholarship. It was not until he
plainly showed his power to "toil terribly," not until he palpably
_added_ to our knowledge of American history, that men who had sneered
at his occasional rhapsodies of patriotism admitted his claims to be
considered the historian of the United States. They resisted Bancroft as
long as Bancroft gave them the slightest reason to believe that he was
interposing his own mind between them and facts which they know its well
as he; but when, by independent and indefatigable research, at home and
abroad, he indisputably widened the sphere of their information, they
pardoned the faults of the rhetorician in their gratitude to the toiling
investigator who had added to their knowledge.

It is the felicity of Mr. Motley, that, like Prescott, he is not placed
under the necessity of overcoming prejudices. There is nobody on either
side of the Atlantic (whether we use the word as indicating its limited
sense as an ocean, or its larger and more liberal moaning as a magazine)
who would not rejoice in his success, and be g